Death And The Downturn: How The Recession Is Affecting Funerals

Real estate has always been pricey in New York, but living six feet under just got more expensive.

Across Brooklyn, funeral homes are losing money because many families cannot afford what they might have once paid to bury their relatives. While the economic downturn does not affect the death rate, many families are choosing to cremate instead of bury, saving between $2,000 and $4,000. And that's not their only concession.

From handmade funeral programs to shopping around online for the lowest prices, Brooklynites are economizing, often times changing their original plans and opting for a more frugal funeral.

Lamar Brown is a third-generation funeral director at Robeson and Brown Funeral Home in Bedford-Stuyvesant. For the past 70 years his father and grandfather have offered traditional services as a family funeral home on Gates Avenue. Today, "we've become more like a bid," says Brown. "It's not traditional anymore -- it's not 'we took care of your family for years' -- it's all about expense. Nobody cares about the quality."

Cremation costs between $1,000 and $3,500. Out of the 200 services a year handled by the Davis-Armstrong Funeral Home in Flatbush, 25 percent are cremations, with the number increasing yearly. "Cremations are an inexpensive way of disposing a person," according to manager William Armstrong.

Keep reading: http://thebrooklynink.com/?p=1509

Comments

[MyGoodMojo]

There are options more environmentally friendly than either traditional burial or cremation-- the natural alternative.

There's some info to be found here: http://naturalburial.coop/

[fanifesu]

That's actually not true, cremation does cause harm, but I think it's less harmful.

[fanifesu]

I prefer cremation personally, and I wish more folks did because it saves space on an already overcrowded planet. Also, all those chemicals, and preservatives, ect, are damaging to groundwater. Plus who wants to rot away when you can cut to the chase & go straight to ash & dust.

[Social Construct]

"Soylent Green is people!" ... Detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston).

[gavottes]

While the downturn may be EFFECTING funerals - helping them happen - by shortening lives , I think you meant AFFECTING.

CHANGE it fast before someone else notices.

[avocats]

too late. aren't there editors at HuffPo?

[Shaddup]

Thank you for that. That's the second time I've seen that error today, and the different words give me enough trouble as it is.

[PatA]

Cremation doesn't take up space in the ground. We need to consider that , environmentally, it is the best choice. My family (two daughters) will be cremated.

[Dlotus]

About respect, it seems to me that "bmermaid" has something important to say. People tend to think of each other as bodys. They say things like I have a spirit, but that implies that they seem to be the body and the spirit is something they own somewhere. I guess when you pass on, that issue is resolved. I've done at least 4 family funerals in the past 3 years, and some of them are ok, you get to catch up with family even if one feels sad, on the other hand, its way over priced. Dust to dust, thats what the ancients said, so why doesn't someone start the portable cremation rental system, and make it easier on people's wallets. It sounds wierd, but we rent everything else. Just a thought get cracking. It's only a shell left behind!! Unless your into body preservation .
Now i get just as sad as anyone when a loved one leaves this planet, i just don't think of them as bodies not even when they are alive. We are our soul. that's true whether you believe it or not.

[getoffthecross]

"That's true whether you believe it or not." No...that's still your opinion (whether YOU believe it or not).

No one can speak for sure as to whether we have a "soul" that continues on after we expire. It's a dark, ugly thing to consider that an abyss may very well wait for all of us at the end, but it's hubris in the extreme to think that 6 billion "souls" each have a purpose and destiny outside of this brief lifespan. Just as it's childish to think that we have an eternity of either glorious salvation or damnable torment waiting for us after the blink of time we spend in the mortal coil.

And if the present life were considered even more precious, perhaps we would conduct ourselves differently.

[WatchingTheWheelsTurn]

Hooray for the usage correction on "effecting." "Affecting" and "Effecting" are going the way of the apostrophe --- consistently used incorrectly with ever-increasing frequency. It's awful to see this on a supposedly professional web site.

[rabiddog6708]

When your time is up....when you shuffle off this mortal coil....shuffle on down to Cut-Rate Burials....We are slashing prices on our plots.....cutting the coffin cost in half.....turning up the heat and the savings on our cremation deals. Don't spend an eternity paying for your eternal rest.

[DougNTexas]

My Grandfather said in the South over 100 years ago people were buried in wood coffins. He said in the summer if someone died they were buried fast. The coffin was wood and quickly made by close neighbors.

[testami]

Thanks for your (much needed) insightful article. I am a CPA and financial planner that helps families needing to save money on funeral costs. I have a website that provides some good, objective information about funeral and cremation planning, funeral costs, and ways to reduce funeral costs. This website provides a fairly unique perspective on funeral planning because it's written specifically for consumer's needing to save money on funeral expenses. A lot of this information is not available elsewhere. I am also the author of the resource kit referenced on this site. Both the site and the reference kit really can provide a legitimate "lifeline" for families that simply can't afford the large cost associated with funeral or cremation services. The website can be found here: http://www.funeral-tips.com

[BeFairNow]

Again, I wish to highlight the incorrect use of the terms 'effect' and 'affect'. When you write that the economic downturn is 'effecting' funerals, the sentence ends up meaning that the economic downturn is 'carrying out' funerals or causing them to happen. If you had used the correct word, 'affect', the sentence would have meant that the economic downturn is having an 'impact on' funerals in some way, which, I think I can safely surmise, was your original intent. 'Effect' and 'affect' cannot be used interchangeably because they do not have the same meaning. It is worth making sure that you are using the correct one to accurately communicate your meaning. If you think I am being pedantic and it does not matter, just remember that nations have gone to war and people have killed each other over misunderstandings like these and smaller. It is important to get it right.

[4everdem]

That is a sketchy looking funeral home in the pic.

[ConcernedAboutRFuture]

Um, I believe it's "Affecting" not "effecting."

[fanifesu]

There's no need to start off a sentence with "um" either C.A.O.F, just a thought.

[bmermaid]

Buring people is old fashioned. Really, our whole system of traditional funerals is out-dated. I don't like or understand the whole "everybody has to do it the same way that everyone else does" thing.
And how sophisticated does our society have to become before people understand that the person we knew is not in that dead body anymore, so it doesn't really matter what happens to it.
Seems to me that sometimes a dead body is more respected than when it still had somebody in it.